Why Amsterdam?
not a great photo but it shows the "I AM sterdam" logo that is part of their promotion of the city this year...
Why Amsterdam? This is a goodie & the one we hear every single day!🙂 There were a lot of factors that contributed to our decision on where we should live...
For years we have discussed living in Italy for an extended stay. Italy is a fan favorite for so many reasons: the culture, the history, the people, the food!!, the quaintness of the cities & small rural towns...the list goes on! Europe just seemed really far away & so we went through a short period where we actually considered living somewhere closer to the continental USA since we knew that Bryan was going to have to travel back to Nevada to continue work throughout the year.
Once we started to research the flight times & prices, we realized that getting to an island off the eastern side of the US is just about the same as flying to Europe. The cultural consideration was also a factor and although we all would have learned a lot living on a beautiful tropical island, we felt that 12 months might be too long for exploration in a small area... Europe was back on the table!
As we started to discuss Europe, the language barrier became a top consideration as we didn't want the kids to fall behind either in school or locally with neighborhood friends. Although we could find an international school that taught in English in almost any large city, we felt they would still be making friends & communicating in town where they might not have the time to learn a language in just one year.
Beautiful as the language is, we also wondered if they would use Italian much in their lives. The Netherlands hopped to the top of our list of European countries as the language barrier does not exist, at least in the city of Amsterdam. Almost everyone uses English on a daily basis & it is the common language among all the Scandinavian countries just to the North.
Secondly, the central location of The Netherlands
makes for very simple travel to several countries that we wish to visit when the kids have a long weekend or a school break. We plan to get Eurail train passes & see where the wind takes us!
Thirdly (and this list could go on all day!) we loved the vibe, the people, the look & feel of this city... the fact that we don't need a car is a big plus! Riding bikes & taking public transportation will hopefully enlighten the kids & ourselves, teaching us not to buy so many groceries, plan accordingly when leaving the house, learn about maps & timetables, etc etc etc!
There are many reasons we quickly realized that Amsterdam was the city calling our name & we got going right away finding the right school & the right neighborhood to call home for the next year. More on school & neighborhood coming up!!
Why Leave for a Whole Year?
Why Leave for a Whole Year? So...read about Expats...this is totally us! I guess I really don't need to say a whole lot more than this article states. Thanks to Celia for this link.
😀
Did You Find a Place to Live?
Did You Find a Place to Live?
This episode of Living Abroad gives a great visual of a couple of the neighborhoods in the areas near our apartment. Our place is in the Vondelpark neighborhood & the steep, narrow stairs give you a good idea of our daily climb!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDiCvlzIxCQ
Jordie
We also came across the "what you can learn from expats" article and loved it. so happy we have met you on this journey. it will surely be a wonderful ride!